America has come a long way with marriage equality. Interracial marriage is legal, and same-sex marriage is legal in 37 states.

The Supreme Court also may clear the way for same-sex marriage nationally this month.

This progress, however, cannot lead to complacency.

On June 11, the Republican legislators in North Carolina passed Senate Bill 2.

SB2 supposedly would protect the religious freedom of court officials by granting them “the right to recuse from performing all lawful marriages [for at least six months] … based upon any sincerely held religious objection.” Previously, such a dereliction was a misdemeanor. To add insult to injury, recused court officials still would receive every penny of their salaries.

Senate leader Phil Berger, who sponsored SB2, acknowledged it is meant to protect court officials from being forced into “complying with the new marriage law imposed by the courts.”

Ironically, SB2 became law the day before Loving Day, the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s unanimous 167 decision in Loving v. Virginia. It legalized interracial marriage across the nation by declaring that anti-miscegenation laws violated were unconstitutional violations of the 14th Amendment.

More importantly, Loving established that the right to marry is an undeniable civil right. Writing for the court, Chief Justice Earl Warren stated that marriage is “one of the basic civil rights of man, fundamental to our very existence and survival. … Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.”

United States v. Windsor, in which the high court in 2013 struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act, affirmed that “state laws defining or regulating marriage, of course, must respect the constitutional rights of persons.”

SB2 diminishes civil rights and human dignity. As did anti-miscegenation laws, it would violate constitutional guarantees of due process and equal protection.

Not content with simply violating the spirit of Loving, SB2 also is a direct attack on its legal precedent. In order to appear nondiscriminatory, the bill does not define what constitutes a sincerely held religious belief.

Court officials would be able to nullify Loving by claiming that anti-miscegenation is a sincerely held belief. For example, a Christian could use the trope of the Mark of Cain / Curse of Ham – the Bible-derived justifications for racism and slavery – to justify anti-miscegenation. Considering that a 2013 Gallup poll found more than 10 percent of Americans still disapprove of marriage between blacks and whites, it’s an all-too-real possibility.

On top of opening the door to a range of marriage discrimination, SB2 sets a dangerous precedent. Other jurisdictions would be tempted to copy it. Worse, if a magistrate can refuse to marry a couple because of a “sincerely held religious belief,” why couldn’t a paramedic refuse to treat someone because of a “sincerely held religious belief”?

Americans should take pride in how far the nation has come, but they should not forget that the battle for marriage equality is still not won.

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